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the-lovely-lady-luck · 15 days ago

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okay i finally did it, i caved and i wrote 3k words about a character with less than 60 lines of dialog in a ~30 hour game. if you haven't played clair obscur: expedition 33 yet i lightly suggest that you do bc the game is absolutely an all-timer. also don't read this because it spoils just about every major plot point in the entire game. if you've played feel free to read on.

Fuck. Clea Dessendre. I don't even know where to start to be honest. What a wildly compelling character. Eldest daughter syndrome. Needs to be doing something productive-ass cunt. This is sort of just my insane ramblings about her (mostly off the cuff while at work or packing for my trip), so if there are any inconsistencies it’s likely due to that but I fully intend to do a deep dive looking into all the mentions of Clea sometime soon.

I guess the central thing that compels me is the thing that most people get wrong about her in the first place: her grief. admittedly we have very little to work on from her directly, but I would argue that it's intentional. We have a couple of core things about her introduced through our first and only real interaction with her.

- She's a painter (obviously)

- She is mean to Maelle, and it's highly insinuated to be related to blaming her for Verso's death. She “both loves and hates him for that”, hating that he sacrificed himself for a sibling she doesn’t love like she loves him and yet loving him for it because it's why she loved him in the first place — that he was the kind of person who would sacrifice himself like that.

- She is off waging war against the Writers. She is outwardly dismissive of the rest of the family and the way they are handling their grief, but at the same time says she will wage this war on her own if need be.

I’ve seen a lot of jokes about how she's the only one in the family not caught up in grief, how she's off fighting in the plot of an entirely different game where she is the protagonist, etc. And while that's funny (and I want to play the clea game please please please) I think putting her off in a corner where she gets to lore dump and then not matter is a missed opportunity to think about her place in all of this.

The stages of grief tend to be overused and often misunderstood (people putting too much significance in, say, the order of them or the insistence on everyone existing in every stage in the process), but I like the framework of different manifestations of grief and the names are easy to understand so I am going to use them as points of reference here (though notably i am reaching different definitions and conclusions for these terms than the “stages of grief”). My original thoughts on the topic were long and rambly so I'm paraphrasing my thoughts.

Denial and Bargaining are predominantly shown through the parents of the family, Aline and Renoir. Denial is Aline’s territory, with many characters remarking about her desire to escape into the fantasy of the canvas to avoid the harsh reality. She builds upon Verso’s established world and creates a fake version of her family so that she can play out what “should” have been. Bargaining, in a less traditional sense, is Renoir’s domain. He insists on his method of grieving over all others. And while he has a perspective many see as more healthy than Aline’s, his desire to force his family all under one roof to heal together is violent and ends up dooming an entire world just to satisfy his belief. His bargain is that if we just all stopped what we were doing and stood together for a moment and process in the *right way* then it won’t hurt.

Depression and Acceptance are the axis on which Alicia and Painted Verso reside. We don’t see much of Alicia in-game (I am counting Alicia, Maelle, and Maell-icia as different people in this context, since they largely have different experiences and feelings) but during her flashback we see she isn’t doing much in the mansion, and she takes Clea’s insults and believes them to be true. She blames herself for Verso’s death, as well as the conflict her parents are locked into. We don’t know enough about the situation with the fire to make any kind of commentary on how true that is but it clearly weighs on her as she worries over her family and repeatedly seeks some way to help. She initially talks about her injuries and claims her desire to go into the canvas is more to help her family, but later on, as Maell-icia, she comments to Renoir of “how little of [her] life remains” outside the canvas, revealing a darker insight to her interiority.

Painted Verso is one of the few characters to strongly reside in multiple modes as a character of both Depression and Acceptance. Painted Verso is someone I think I could go on another rant about but my abbreviated take is that Painted Verso is a character who is being denied the stage of acceptance by everyone around him. By the time we reach him he has known the truth and wanted out of his immortality for some time. His life has gone too long, he has watched his loved ones die or be killed off, only to learn to love again and then see them die and killed off again in a never ending cycle. While the family of his dead namesake fights over his memory in their attempt to reckon with grief, Painted Verso is forced to live through cycles of grief over and over and over again (while these people can’t even get through a single one). His acceptance goes beyond accepting grief and it has basically broken him. He wants an end to the pain for him and for everyone in the canvas that dies because of his family (on his behalf), even if that means wiping it all away. With Verso’s memories and feelings and characteristics he is the most in-tune to what Verso would want for his canvas (rivaled only by the sliver of Verso’s soul that still resides within the painting).

Which leaves one major stage remaining, something that this game as a whole, in fact, seems to lack: Anger. Sure there are flashes of it here and there (this is not a game without anger), but it is rare that we see anger ignited by grief in the main story. Gustave has flashes of it, and then after his death Maelle possesses a great anger towards Painted Renoir for his part in it. But otherwise we see the other stages spread far and wide across the game while anger is relegated to the background.

Clea is anger. And her absence haunts the narrative like the absence of anger haunts the game. Her simmering anger echoes throughout the background of the game, from abducting Painted Clea to killing an Axon to pushing Alicia into the painting, her choices compound. And while I'm fully prepared to admit I might be going wild with all the red strings on the pinboard it feels like its simmering just under the surface in anything directly related to her, like a motif. With Renoir, with Alicia, with Simon, with *herself* she is trying to inspire rage at one thing or another.

Now anyone who knows me likely knows I love themes of anger and mess so it's no surprise I love Clea so much. Clea is *angry* at the writers, and while the other family members likely share the sentiment, she is the only one seen to be stewing in that anger, who has stayed in it as long as everyone else has been mourning or bargaining or denying. As shown and stated by both herself and Renoir she is waging war alone and at the same time lashing out at anyone nearby. She blames Alicia for Verso's death in his sacrifice for her and she shows outright disdain for Aline and her attempts to escape to a world where the tragedy didn't happen. Renoir, who is ostensibly on her side, is not immune as Clea repeatedly states he is wasting his time trying to force Aline out of the canvas. Even verso, whose death the family so greatly mourns, gets the word hate spoken towards him for his willing sacrifice for Alicia. But each of these are, in a fucked up way, some combination of care, grief, and love for each character.

Clea is not kind to Alicia, generally speaking. It is difficult to gauge what their relationship was like before Verso's death, but it was certainly worsened by the event. she belittles her and her abilities, and even a couple of instances flagrantly comments about her inability to speak from her scarring. I certainly wouldn't call it a warm dynamic but there's a repeating theme of treating Alicia like a child, *which she is* at her (likely) age of 16. In several instances Clea mentions that Alicia being in the painting would actually help (as she is unlikely to be helpful in fighting a war given her proficiency before going into the painting) and she says she won't have to worry about Alicia while she is spending time growing up in the painting as maelle. Clea even enters the painting again, something she has repeatedly said is a waste of time, to specifically ask Painted Verso to watch over her since it is safer for her in the Canvas. It's not a particularly kind love, but I think it is a love all the same. The Clea in the endless tower speaks to Maell-icia asking if she wants to have fun, get away from the stress of fighting for a moment. She is still antagonistic but her distance and Maell-icia’s safety in the canvas allow her to let down her walls enough to speak more kindly.

Clea and her mother have a rocky relationship, which we can see pretty clearly with her attitude towards her mother in the flashback and how Renoir's plan wouldn't even function without Clea's direct involvement in weakening her mother. There is an twinkle of admiration in her words, as Clea talks about how Aline used to be the head of the Painters Council, how Aline is far better at painting than Renoir is and how Clea had to help him to even have a chance, how Aline *would have* agreed with her before she became this different person in her mourning. She is also the only Dessendre child to consistently refer to her mother as “Aline” rather than “Maman”. She even paints over her mother's depiction of her, one of the most pointedly spiteful things in the game. While it is all antagonistic, I think it hides a resentment that Aline isn't with the rest of the family. The person Clea respected, who was head of the Painter’s Council, would not abandon her family — would not abandon *Clea* — like Aline has. And with her gone and unwilling to listen to anyone else on the subject, Clea has cut her out, abandoning her to the painting and only contributing to her expulsion because it will hasten Renoir to her cause.

Renoir and Clea are close, him being one of the only people she shows respect for. She doesn't speak very highly of his painting skill, and she is firm in her belief that his attempts to expel Aline are a waste of time, but he wants to live with his family in the real world, which is the closest that Clea has to someone to grieve with. And so she creates the nevrons to stop chroma from returning to Aline, and letter sends Alicia to go help him too. She really wants him out of the painting, thinking he will be of major assistance in the war she is fighting (despite her comment that he's not as strong as his wife). And the admiration is mutual. While there is some debate in the game if it is Clea or Alicia who is Renoir's favorite, we can see with Hauler, the Axon slain by Simon in Old Lumiere, that Renoir saw her as carrying a part of the world on her shoulders. Alone. Clea’s ostensible lack of care towards the events of the canvas is repeatedly betrayed by her actual actions that add up to Renoir’s eventual success.

We don’t know much about the war going on, but we know that Clea is the only one in her family fighting in it, potentially the only person fighting in it *at all* if the throwaway lines about the state of the Painters is indicative of anything. Upon Verso’s death she starts fighting. And then Aline withdraws from the world leaving her family to grieve without her around, a betrayal from a woman and paintress Clea seems to respect. Renoir, the only one who seems to want everyone together, goes into the canvas to bring his wife out. Clea is left to sort things out on her own, using anger and fighting a war single handed to process her feelings. And all of this on top of having to care for her newly scarred younger sister (who Clea is already having a hard time not blaming for Verso's death) because her parents have abandoned them both.

But Clea is a grown woman. She can handle this. And then time wears on. and on. So she creates Nevrons to speed the process up, to get her parents back. She goes in herself only to discover a painted version of her likeness, some kind woman helping this man she loves on an expedition to explore this newly shattered world. It's such an insult to Clea that she steals this fake version of her and *paints over her* — both a mark of skill as well as a pointed aggression towards Aline, painting over another artist's work. It’s easy to assume that she is simply offended by Aline painting a bad or unflattering depiction of her, but I think it’s actually the opposite. We know Aline is an amazing painter, Renoir remarks that Painted Verso is one of her finest creations and Maelle/Maell-icia both have an affinity towards Painted Alicia and seem to understand each other on an intrinsic level. Renoir and Painted Renoir interact very little but despite Maell-icia’s comment to the contrary, both are quite willing to commit mass murder to protect their respective families in the way they think is correct. I don’t think Aline got Clea wrong, I think she got Clea *deeply* and *uncomfortably* right.

Clea, in her anger and her already growing disdain for her mother, sees this woman who loves and cares for her family, for her brother and for Simon, and loses it. It is too painful to see a version of herself happy and in love; and in anger and jealousy she steals her away and “forces” this Clea into someone endlessly producing Nevrons — alone and fighting her own war against the expeditions without her family. Clea disguises herself as her Painted counterpart and grants Simon the power to kill the Axon painted in her likeness — Hauler, She Who Carries the World (that’s not an official title but god I just *really* want to know what it was). In one fell swoop she has erased herself from the canvas and from both parents; leaving one corpse as a monument in the center of the world among crumbling ruins and one corpse an animated puppet painted over her likeness and trapped in a sky prison.

The final piece of the puzzle is verso, who we learn Clea was very very close to. The only canonical age we have is verso, who is 26, so it is difficult to draw hard lines around childhood, but given that Clea is the eldest and Alicia seems to be quite a bit younger than Verso, it makes sense that Clea would be closer to him than her. She would have spent 10ish years with him (which we get some small glimpses into throughout the game) before Alicia came along. We get a lot of stories about the two of them through fading souls and talking to Esquie and Francois. Verso is scared of the dark and Clea makes him the Lampmaster (scary as fuck nightlight), the two of them go on adventures with their respective imaginary friends/creations. In the extended scene where Esquie gets Urrie we learn that Francois enjoys dancing and singing, and that he used to do so with Clea all the time. While initially unclear if this is just Esquie's optimistic perspective on the situation, the ending in which Francois asks to keep the little stone (with him and clea carved together) shows us francois “crying dramatically” over the rock (and Verso commenting about how much he must miss her). If you go back to him later Francois actually *thanks* the player for giving him the rock, saying it is nice to have a carving of Clea. These memories and her parent’s depictions of her paint a very different image than the one we see in her few real appearances.

The personal nail in the coffin for me is Re-Painted Clea seeing Painted Verso in the flying manor. When you make your way up there Verso is surprised she is even alive, a testament to how well Clea pulled off her deception. After the fight the party determines that they can’t really kill her, but something causes one of Re-Painted Clea’s eyes to return to normal, accompanied by the sound of panting effort. Painted Clea regains control, if only briefly, and tries to reach out to Painted Verso, her brother. Her body cracks and strains at the movement, like she is fighting off Clea’s Re-painting just to hold his hand again. The effort isn't enough and Re-Painted Clea takes control again, backing away and shaking her head. She takes control of her Nevrons and bids them to attack her relentlessly until she dies in an explosion of paint and energy. Painted Verso only gets a moment to say goodbye to the energy left over before it dissipates. Painted Clea seeing the fight with Painted Verso is enough to give her the will to fight back against the weakened control, and Re-Painted Clea sees Painted Verso as enough of a threat to her control that she kills herself rather than risk it again (yet another cruel bit of programming from Clea in her Re-Painting process).

Honestly I could probably keep going and getting less and less coherent given that we have so little to work with but YOU SEE MY VISION. I KNOW YOU DO. Clea baby I love you and your anger. Your belief that anger will defeat the grief and that you can outrun it you just have to become meaner and more spiteful and don’t stop running and running and running or it will catch you in the dead of night. And then your grief will make you useless just like your family is. And what good are you if you don’t have use.

Fuck. Clea Dessendre.

#clair obscur: expedition 33 #clair obscur spoilers #clair obscur #expedition 33 #coe33 #clea dessendre #once again if you haven't played don't look up the name its adjacent to many many important spoilers #shadow the hedgehog dub voice: yes rouge thanks for listening to my insane ramblings about this side character #now clea i just need you to become a lesbian and you will be reincarnated as a beautiful lotus flower.#and yes she has about 56 lines of dialog #this includes lines that are assumed to be from her (though not confirmed)#as well as something like 5 lines that one or two words

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starry-bi-sky · 1 year ago

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I am absolutely loving your Danyal Al Ghul au. While I have a soft spot for the whole plotline of Danny becoming his canon personality almost right after breaking away from the LOA all because of Jazz, I'm just as much for your take in which he goes through the same character development as Damian.

Now I'm curious. You already tackled his relationship with Dani, will you eventually take a stab at when he, Sam, and Tucker meet Gregor? Given that it's one of my hated episodes as I couldn't stand Sam's infuriatingly hypocritical attitude to Danny's suspicions of him, I'd kill to see your spin on it.

Aw, thank you! Danyal Al Ghul aus are what got me into DPDC first, so I have a major soft spot for them. That being said, uh, its exactly that soft spot that causes me to have Many Opinions about the trope you just mentioned. Like the trope is all fine and dandy, i don't blindly hate it, my main issue with it is that most aus i've seen treat his backstory as an ex-assassin more like a pretty cosmetic accessory rather than something that actually should have had an impact on him. Especially if he remembers being in the league.

Like i cannot stress enough the fact that being in an ecofascist assassin cult (regardless of his standing in it) should've left him, in some way or another, screwed up morally and psychologically because that's just how development works. Nature vs. Nurture is like a game of tug-o-war that never ends, where they are constantly fighting against each other and one side usually has the upper hand or greater influence. Children model the behaviors of the adults around them (ex: bobo the clown doll experiment), and what impacts them in childhood can stick with them permanently.

Like how my psychology professor put it: a baby's brain is like wet cement; if you slap your hand on it, it leaves an imprint, and the cement dries that way. The same rings true for small children.

I could go on, but I frankly have so many thoughts on that alone that I would end up completely derailing from the second half of your ask, and I don't want to be more critical than I already have. Especially since you just mentioned you have a soft spot for the trope.

[Okay, hold onto your hats because this is long. Naturally lmao.]

Gregor! Man, I'll admit I last watched the show back in middle school on a dodgy illegal website (it had surprisingly good audio and visual graphics, and full episodes. But really annoying porn ads.) but I only made it to like season 1 before my hyperfixation faded and I lost interest. So I never actually saw the Gregor episode.

But... it is relatively easy to find free websites that stream Danny Phantom :), so finding the episode took me like. Thirty seconds. Plus the Tv.Tropes recap page because my damn earbuds just died and im out in public as of rn.

I'm not sure if I'll write something for the gregor episode like I did with Dani, since Dani's a bit of a special case in that she's a clone and tends to be a reoccurring presence in DPDC, and I thought the new dynamic with Danyal would be interesting.

Plus, I'm not a big amethyst ocean shipper for the pure reason of I'm just not all that interested in it; its kinda bland to me. I'll admit I've entertained the thought in this au due to the whole balcony scene i wrote, but I would've entertained the thought anyways if it was Tucker in that position instead. Big multishipper, me.

But, if I had to make it official? Danyal is not interested romantically in Sam when the Gregor episode happens, regardless of his relationship with Valerie. Who, speaking of I'm trying to think about how that would go, and I'm torn between including him almost-dating Valerie or not.

Because on one hand it helps point out Sam's hypocrisy (and i love her but i am always happy to point out her flaws and address them in au) in this episode in terms of Danny spying on them, but on the other hand I'll want to include a lot of set up in order to make Gray Ghost work in this au and wow will that take a while.

Especially with the Flirting with Disaster episode because it happens due to Technus' meddling, and Danny is, well, the son of the Batman? A trained assassin? An ex-assassin nonetheless, but still an assassin? A prodigy child in this au? He might not have needed to use most of his skills in the last few years, but like... there's just a bunch of 'what if' and 'well technically...' and 'would he? he could, but would he?' things that is getting in the way of my thought process and making my head spin.

Mmm. Okay. Flirting with Disaster occurs relatively the same as canon with a few exceptions; like Danyal noticing the strange coincidences, and he might take the idea into proper consideration because Sam has a point it is strange, especially out of nowhere.

However,,, he really enjoys Valerie's company, and he does really like her. He's been adjusting to civilian life for the last four years and while he's made a lot of progress, he's still. an ex-assassin child living like a wolf amongst sheep. This is normal, typical teenager stuff, and usually his friends like to encourage him doing normal teenager stuff.

So he's stubbornly holding out on the thought that this is normal, that ghost stuff isn't interfering here. He's a little hurt that his friends are discouraging this, he's not bothered by the fact that Valerie is a ghost hunter and he a ghost -- his mother is an assassin, and his father is Batman, and they still had a relationship. (Granted, he's not gonna tell them that)

If anything, being diametrically opposed to each other but still being in love is part of the family! Granted, usually both parties are aware of said opposition to each other, but he'll make a special exception this time around.

(And man now that i'm thinking about gray ghost, im now thinking about various like. scenes i could write between the two of them. maybe in a reblog.)

Anyways uhhh things relatively go the same as canon. Yeah. I think Sam still has a crush on Danny and still spies out of jealousy with Tucker.

Now, the Gregor episode! With that out of the way; the TVTropes recap for this episode isn't the best because it doesn't go into detail about the entire episode like it does with Flirting With Disaster and Shades of Gray.

(which i looked at earlier because I made a section of this post talking briefly about what changes I'd make to the Shades of Gray episode to help set up Gray Ghost, but ended up deleting because it was kinda irrelevant for the matter at hand.)

So I'm taking in bits of the episode clips at a time, I'll try not to get too nitpicky about how each scene goes because then it's gonna take me a longer time to write this.

But! First thing's first; since Danny is not romantically interested in Sam, he is also not jealous of Gregor. He is however, a bit eyebrow-raisey at him in their first introduction, but that's because Gregor is coming off as obnoxious.

Danny thinks he's kinda annoying, and it doesn't take a genius to see that Gregor is trying to impress Sam. But since they've only known him for five minutes he takes the good faith assumption and assumes that Gregor is genuinely trying to show interest in Sam's interests too because he likes her, so he keeps mum. The fake hungarian accent is weird, but it's overall harmless, so he doesn't point it out.

He does do the spying thing when he starts suspecting that Gregor might be working for the GIW. The episode only has this happen twice, but for the au this happens a handful of more times over the course of the week, with Danyal's suspicion steadily rising more and more each time.

Hah, when he brings up wanting to spy on Sam and Gregor because of this reason, Tucker still does his "woah! you wanna spy on Sam?" thing.

Danny immediately turns to him, completely unimpressed, and crosses his arms. "Tucker," he says, deadpan, "you and Sam spied on me and Valerie."

He uses a combination of his ghost powers and his regular stealth ability to spy on them. He's hiding in a tree when they're skipping rocks, close enough that he can use his powers to hear them talk but far enough away that he has a good view of their surroundings.

He's invisible in the cinema, but doesn't accidentally get in front of the projector. He checks the inside of the room for the GIW, and then waits outside the actual room itself, keeping an eye on the area and occasionally flying in to watch the movie out of boredom. It reminds him of being back on a recon mission with the League, but it doesn't end with him orchestrating someone's death.

Then when they're at the mall he stays in human form, blending in with the crowd. He runs into the GIW there, but realizes that they're not there because of Gregor; they're just shopping. They didn't show up at either of the last two locations, and he follows them to make sure they're not also trying to blend in. But they're literally just there for shopping.

Danny is rather pleased with this turnout; so far Gregor isn't a spy, he's just annoying. The next day at lunch he asks Sam how her date with Gregor went, and that's how she figures out he spied on them, because well, she didn't tell him that.

"Have you been spying on me?"

Danny messes with his food a little bit, and Tucker is sinking into his seat with embarrassment. He frowns, "Only last night. Those incompetent government dodos--"

His lip curls up; he gets all 'Shakespeare-y' (as Sam and Tucker put it) when he's insulting someone, "--kept appearing whenever Gregor did. I followed you and him last night to make sure he wasn't a spy."

A roundabout way of saying, "I was worried".

Sam is, as canon, furious. Danny understands why, he knows generally speaking that people don't like being spied on. But he's confused on just how angry she is, and is a little irritated by it.

"Why would you do that!" She exclaims, "That's way out of line, Danny."

"How? You spied on me when I was going on dates with Valerie." He narrows his eyes, and points his fork at her, "I'm not blind, I noticed."

"That's different, we told you why we were suspicious. And we don't have ghost powers like you do."

"I don't need ghost powers to sneak around, Sam, you've seen this firsthand. And I just told you why I followed you, I thought he was working with the guys in white--"

"So you think someone can only be interested in me if they're after you?" (this is a paraphrased quote, folks ;D)

"No! If that was the case I would have voiced my concern the moment I thought it. I don't get why you're so angry, you spied too."

Iiits.... a mess. Sam storms off with Gregor, Tucker tags along because okay, yeah, maybe Gregor isn't with the GIW, or maybe last night was a fluke. Either way he ends up tagging along. Danny overhears that conversation between the GIW and Mr. Lancer, and maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong; but something is up.

I've gotten to that scene in the locker room where Gregor tells Danny that he knows he doesn't like him, and I've paused at Danny's reply to say this: Danyal doesn't even bother trying to deny it.

"I know you do not like me."

"You're right; I don't."

"Ah, let me finish. I know you do not like me because you want to protect your friend, Sam, and I respect that."

"...That's correct."

"Good! Because I am going to ask her out."

"I had a feeling you'd say that," he stands up, claps his hand tight on Gregor's shoulder, and leans close to him with a threatening smile, "so you understand me when i say; if you break my best friend's heart, you're as good as dead, right?"

"Ah,, yes. I am so glad we got that cleared out of the way, and now I hope after we can.. how you Americans put it, hang out?"

In the episode he hugs Danny and gives him a la bise (which is that french greeting where you kiss someone on the cheek two or more times) after they end their conversation. But here, when he goes to do that to Danyal, Danny leans away, points an accusatory finger at him, and says; "Absolutely not; we are not close."

The next scene after that is like, end of day. Sam, Tucker, and Gregor walking away. Sam looks over her shoulder to glare at Danny, then gets forlorn. Tucker looks back and just looks forlorn.

(When did I start narrating each scene?? Eh, I'm writing this in brief spurts of time throughout the day. Don't fix what's not broke)

After that there's this whole scene with the two GIW agents that have been chasing Phantom all episode. They're there because they have Tucker's PDA that Skulker took, and it's got the information of their purple backed gorilla assignment on it. They've been going around seeing who Tucker associates with in hopes of catching Phantom.

Uhh ahaha and that is where this gets a little interesting imo, and also allows me to mention that im retconning Danyal's (already) redesigned ghost form. Which I've wanted to retcon even before this moment bc it was just too busy. I'll get to that in a moment.

The GIW suspect Gregor for being the Phantom because of his white hair and green eyes, which is all fine and dandy until you remember: Danyal (and by extension Phantom) has that very noticeable, rather identifiable facial scar that goes across the middle of his fucking face. The GIW could easily suspect that Phantom hides his scar with makeup if he's in disguise, but if they meet a kid with a seemingly identical facial scar and similar disposition? Hoo boy.

Solution? I've got two: Gregor is canonically a kid from Michigan who faked everything to impress Sam. Considering he knows she's gothic and knows that she's ultra-recyclo vegetarian? He probably watched her from afar or got information on her somehow. His hair is dyed, his eyes might just naturally be green, but if he notices that she's got a crush on either Danyal or Phantom? A little sfx makeup could help him recreate a similar looking scar.

My second solution that's gonna happen anyways bc its that suit redesign; Danyal does hide his face as Phantom. Ghosts are emotional creatures and its a popular headcanon that their interests, ambitions, etc, influence the way they look as a ghost, not just their death. A big reoccurring theme of my au is that Danyal did not leave the League unscathed, and that being an assassin is an important part of his identity.

So i'm discarding the hazmat suit look entirely and leaning into the 'assassin' thing. But the general (stylized) feel is like, white ribbon/cloth vambraces that he has used as a garrote at some point, a hood, a gaiter scarf-type thing. I'm keeping the cape. I did a doodle a few days back that's not the official redesign, but a redesign for Phantom. I may reblog this post with that attached because it's got the general feel down. There's very little white involved, but the inside of his cape flares out and looks like the night sky.

Now, the hood and gaiter scarf gets rid of most of the problem, but Danny's hood doesn't stay on all the time, so the GIW have likely seen the upper half of the scar. :] Gregor's own drawn-on scar doesn't have to be 1:1, but it looks close enough, right? A small scar cutting through the edge of his brow and ends right below the corner of his eye. A 'cool, badass' one opposed to Danny's 'garish' scar.

But! Back to the episode scene. Canon Danny gets written off as being 'too prepubescent' to be Phantom, and honestly it'd be hilarious if Danyal was written off for the same reason (he's calling them idiots in his head if they do). But instead -- leaning into the GIW's incompetence here -- he gets written off as being too mature or too talkative. Or something equally as absurd.

Sam breaks up with Gregor for canon reasons, but when Gregor does his "i really like you, but, come on-!" and gestures to tucker, he adds on "and that scary friend of yours too, seriously!"

Things go relatively the same as canon after that. Danny does end up apologizing for spying, however. Sam does it first. Sorrows, prayers, all that.

Things usually end up changed or different when I actually write it down, so I'd likely add more or adjust different scenes according to the flow of the oneshot. This is just like, a general vibe of how things would go, and where some of the more obvious changes would be if I did write this oneshot.

Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the ask :]

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dpxdc crossover #danyal al ghul au #danyal al ghul #i dont even mind the trope that danny becomes like his canon self i just want *some* kind of impact on him. but as it stands most aus i've #seen lowkey treat his assassin background as an accessory. like dyeing your hair or piercing your ears. that being said its also a silly #au where they're brothers and are related to each other and thus doesn't have to be that deep at all! im just bored of seeing the same thin #all the time. especially considering danny is usually depicted as the paler/whiter passing twin and being the 'kinder. more compassionate'#one between the two of them. give me danny who suffered crises of morality! danny whose morally darker than a cloud #morally orange and blue danny who sooner understands 'dont litter' than 'dont murder'. arrogant danny! he dotes on the people he loves but #is an utter bitch to everyone else and thus has to learn to be kinder. danny discovering himself outside being an assassin #his brother remembers a kind and compassionate older brother because thats how danny interacted with him. But danny had no qualms turning #around and slicing the tendons of one of the other assassins because of smth they did that displeased him.#he can still be like his canon self but shouldn't there be something that stays behind? Lingering like a blast shadow?#danny who carries weapons on him always even though he knows he doesn't need it but it makes him feel safer.#danny who spits out the oddest. most foreboding shit sometimes and his friends just stare at him and go 'bro what the fuck??'#idk if i can share the website where i found the episodes bc of risk of copyright. but just search up #'where can i watch danny phantom for free' and look for a reddit post with that question. the comments give website options.#i keep thinking about gray ghost now. valerie finds herself becoming a member of the 'danny fenton protection squad' with sam and tucker #danny takes a page from his beloved mother's book and calls his partners 'beloved' and equally sappy pet names.#he also throws the BIGGEST shitstorm of the century when he finds out about what Axion Labs did to the dogs. hoo boy.

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